He had been hoping to let the constable off after his horrifying night, but Oates’s tone was sharp when he said, “No, I’ll come along.”
“He’s right down at his office,” said Wells.
“We know where he would be, thank you, Mr. Wells,” said Oates.
“How far is it?” asked Lenox, when Wells had closed the door behind him.
“Not three minutes,” said Oates. He took his coat down from the peg. “Shall we go?”
“Yes.”
There was to be a delay, however. When Lenox and Oates came out of the door, Fripp ran up to them, his face alive with news.
“What is it?” said Lenox.
“It’s Mr. Carmody, in thirteen,” he said. “He saw something.”
“What?”
“He won’t tell me. Says he’ll tell it to the member of Parliament. Come along, this way, this way.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When they reached Mr. Carmody in number thirteen, and an upper maid admitted them to a sitting room to wait, Lenox’s heart rose. From the armchair by the window, surrounded by snuffboxes and opened letters, it was clear that Carmody spent a great deal of time here, and the window itself offered a perfect vantage on the town’s green. With luck they might discover the identity of Weston’s murderer in the next ten minutes.
Carmody himself shuffled in, and Oates, Fripp, and Lenox rose to greet him. He was a gray-haired man, taciturn perhaps but not in bad condition, whose shape was rather like that of a snowman, with especial prominence to the roundness of his middle figure. Everything about his personage and this small chamber, with its japanned table of decanters, its piles of books, its soft furniture, indicated a life of ease and comfort.
“Mr. Lenox, I presume!” said the man. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“The pleasure is mine.”
“Yes, Oates, I see you. Hello. Tea, gentlemen?”
“No, thank you,” said Lenox. “If you could tell us—”
“Of course it should be sherry, at this hour. Esmeralda, two glasses — no, four, why not, Oates and Fripp, it’s not every day you sit with gentlemen, I know, but—”
“Please,” said Lenox, “I thank you but I would prefer to keep my wits. If you could simply tell us—”
“Nothing sharpens the wits quite like a sip of something at six o’clock, I say. There she is with the glasses. No, not this sweet nonsense, Esmeralda,” he said, taking a bottle from the maid. “Bring me the Oloroso, of course. No, hold that thought, the Fino, yes, I think Mr. Lenox will like the Fino. You may pour for Mr. Oates and Mr. Fripp from the bottle you have in hand, however. Mr. Lenox, you heard from Mr. Fripp of my occupation?”
“No, sir.”
“I imported wine, for many years. Go to Covent Garden and see if they know G. F. Carmody, just you see.”
“I’ve no doubt—”
“Retired fifteen years—”
“If—”
“Or was it sixteen, Fripp? How long have I been coming to your shop?”
“If we could just—” said Lenox, but was again interrupted, as Esmeralda returned with a new bottle of sherry.
Carmody watched its decantation greedily and then, not quite smacking his lips — but not not smacking his lips either, for what sense that makes — raised it to his mouth. The sigh he gave after swallowing a tot of the liquid was one of a man at peace with the world.
Lenox, out of politeness and exigency, took a large gulp, found it burned his throat, and set the wine down. “Thank you. Now—”
“What d’you make of that, Mr. Lenox?”
“Very nice,” he said.
“Very nice! If I told the boys in Covent Garden that you called a twelve-year Fino very nice, one hand-selected by G. F. Carmody, I wonder what they would say.” Carmody chortled at the possibilities. “My, oh my. No, but the palette, sir, consult the palette. Do you not find an oakish taste to it, something that lays off the sweetness of the first impression, something of the old—”
“Oh, yes, rather, just so,” said Lenox desperately. “But about—”
“Yes, yes, the boy. Terrible pity.” Carmody took another sip and then set about prying open a small, mother-of-pearl snuffbox, hideously inlaid with a pink tile outline of what appeared to be a donkey. “Ah, you see my snuffbox, sir? Presented me by Don Pedro Sousa himself, with an image of a Spanish stallion, representative of our mutual strength. Ask the boys in Covent Garden about Don Pedro Sousa.”
Lenox nodded. “As to Weston—”
“Of course, you are all in haste. I understand. Let me just—” He took a moment or two — what seemed to Lenox like several hours — applying snuff to the inside of one nostril and inhaling it, then repeating the procedure on the other side. “Yes. Weston. Sadly I saw nothing of what occurred on the green. I would have been abed for an hour or two, at least, by the time I hear it must have happened.”
This was a disappointment. “But you saw something?”
“Two things, in fact. I am of a rather stout build, you may see, Mr. Lenox, and I find a walk after supper a eupeptic diversion — most salubrious, in fact. Yesterday evening I was dining with a friend, Mr. Hugo Fish.”
Oates, whose sherry had vanished, and Fripp, whose sherry was untouched, both nodded to indicate that they knew the gentleman in question. “Go on,” said Lenox.
“Consequently my evening constitutional began much later than usual. I took the path to Epping Forest, a quarter of a mile east of here—”
“At what time of evening?” said Lenox.
“It must have been past ten thirty.”
“What did you see?”
“I go by there rather often, two or three times a week, and I have never seen what I saw then — to be precise, two horses hitched up against a tree together, chewing from oatbags. Quite alone.”
“You didn’t recognize the horses?”
“No.”
“Were they well saddled?”
“It was dark, you understand, but they appeared to be decently turned out.”
“Were you close to the path, or off it?”
“Oh, I know these woods quite well, Mr. Lenox. I couldn’t possibly get lost in them. And then it was rather a fullish moon. I was off the path.”
So whoever had left the horses there had at least tried to conceal them. It was obvious why, if they had business with Weston, they hadn’t wanted to come to town on the evening coach. It was not a busy route. A coachman upon his reguler route would have remembered two strange faces.
Why had they come so early, if they hadn’t met Weston until well after midnight? What had they been doing away from their horses in the interim?
“You say you saw two things?”
“Yes.”
“And the second?”
“Upon my return, I saw Captain Musgrave, stalking across the green with that great animal of his.”
“Did he see you?”
“No.”
“Was this before or after the pubs had let out?”
“I walked for an hour, or thereabouts.”
“After, then. Did he seem agitated? Was he walking quickly, slowly?”
“There was nothing remarkable about his conduct, as far as I could ascertain,” said Carmody. “He walked as men will walk.”
“Did you see Weston?”
“I did not.”
“Did you look to the corner of the green, next to the church, where he lived?”
“It’s a small green, Mr. Lenox. I would have seen him. Ah, I see you find the sherry to your taste, now.” Lenox had taken another sip, distractedly. “Esmeralda!”
“No, you’re too kind, but I’m afraid we have urgent— Thank you, Mr. Carmody.”
“Would you leave in such haste? Esmeralda! Please, I entreat you, sit, Mr. Lenox,” said Carmody, “for one more glass.”
“I apologize,” said Lenox. “I must be on my way. Oates? Fripp?”
Both touched their caps to Carmody. When they were on his steps, Oates a
ways ahead of them, Fripp whispered, “Wanted to tell Mr. Fish he had two glasses of sherry with you, I reckon. More social, less official, like. Does that help?”
“Enormously,” said Lenox. “Thank you. Mr. Oates, which way is it to Dr. Eastwood’s, from here? The light is going and I should still like to see both him and Captain Musgrave.”
“Musgrave, this late in the day?”
“Yes. I should especially like to see him,” said Lenox.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dr. Eastwood, whom Lenox’s cousin had mentioned was one of the leading men in Plumbley, practiced out of a small, well-situated cottage along a brook close to the edge of town. The maid who admitted Lenox and Oates was quiet and respectful; they were in a gentleman’s house. For many years physicians had fought hard against the old reputation of their profession — some grand doctors refused to tap a patient’s chest or use a stethoscope because to do so would have brushed too closely against manual labor, a prejudice that had doubtless resulted in many deaths — and Eastwood was, perhaps, the beneficiary of this fight.
Unfortunately, according to Frederick, Eastwood was not entirely at home in Plumbley, having bought a practice here in the hopes that it might lead him to a happy life. He had found relatively few friends and, though unmarried, had no special favorite among the local women. It was surprising; when he greeted them, shaking hands, Lenox saw that he was a tall, handsome, chestnut-haired man, still at the tail end of youth.
He led them into his surgery. “The body is laid out here,” he said in a soft voice. “It offers, sadly, little information.”
“The time of death, perhaps?”
“I cannot say with any great specificity. Not after two in the morning, probably, because the hardening of the tissues was complete by the time I saw the body. Any time up until then, however. I fear that may not help much.”
“Were there any wounds about the hands or arms?”
Eastwood shook his head. “I checked, having some acquaintance with the literature of police medicine, but no. He was taken quite unawares. Perhaps only turned away for a moment.”
“What was the instrument that killed him?”
“There I can give you slightly more information. It was a knife with a blade of five inches, say, or six. There were no serrations in the wound, so I imagine the blade was smooth. Any kitchen knife might have done it. Then again it could have been a more … a more professional sort of object, too, a fold-down.”
“And in his effects?” said Lenox. “You sent word—”
Here he was brought up short, because they had come to Weston’s dead body, bare-chested, cleansed of blood but not of the muscles’ terrible, wrenched contortion. The body’s intense pain, so unmistakable from Weston’s expression and position, was like a rupture in this cheerful work space — the table upon which he lay no doubt the same one where women with pleurisy and children with croup consulted the doctor every afternoon, the glass cabinets above, with their tidy rows of physic, mementoes of a less violent world.
Eastwood paused for a suitable moment, and then said, “Yes. His pockets had been emptied — or were empty when he came to the green, I suppose.”
“I didn’t see any money or keys in his rooms, did you, Oates?” said Lenox.
“Then he was robbed?”
“I feared as much,” said Eastwood. “But they must have missed the ticket pocket in the dark.”
This was the small pocket in the waistcoat just above the bigger, regular pocket, found only on the right side and just large enough for a rail ticket. “What was in it?” Lenox asked.
“This piece of paper,” he said, and handed it to Lenox.
It was folded over three times. On the outside it read, constable oates. Lenox offered it to Oates, who took it and read aloud. “Eye on swell’s basement. Come if you can.”
“Once more?” Lenox said.
Oates repeated the phrase. “I don’t know what it could mean.”
This was obvious: The constable’s eyes were dulled with fatigue, sherry, and sorrow. Lenox doubted whether he was fully aware of his surroundings. Oates’s strength had already been frayed, and now seeing the body seemed to have destroyed it altogether. Looking at him, Lenox saw a few small details he hadn’t before — a patch of hair missed on his shave, dirt under his fingernails — and realized, with a bolt of pity, that Oates must not be married.
Yet this was no time for weakness. “Think!” Lenox said sharply, trying to snap the constable to attention.
“I don’t know.”
“It might be a month old,” said Eastwood.
“No, the paper is too crisp for that,” said Lenox. Then, under his breath, he said, “‘Swell’s basement.’ Does the phrase connote anything to you, Doctor?”
“It does not, unfortunately.”
“Oates? Think hard.”
Oates, with great effort, screwed up his eyes and concentrated but it was no use. “Perhaps after I sleep,” he said. “I feel muddled, just at the moment.”
Eastwood looked troubled and said to Lenox, “Perhaps you might carry on for the evening alone, if I see Constable Oates home? Here, Oates, sit down.”
Lenox nodded. “You know where he lives?”
“Yes.”
“I thank you, then. I’ll be on my way.”
Lenox knew from his uncle the location of Musgrave’s house. He was tired and footsore — had it really been less than twenty-four hours ago that he was a few steps from Charing Cross, rousing Dallington out of that gin bar? — but determined. The meager clues that the past few hours had offered, the cigar ends, the horses in Epping Forest, the note Weston had scrawled out for Oates, had formed a kind of useful drone in his mind, their repetition a form of internalization.
“Swell’s basement”—was it some kind of code? Increasingly Lenox thought so. Weston had been keeping a vigil by the town green, and perhaps he had written the note only if, by chance, someone came by who might convey it to Oates’s house a few streets away. In that case a code would forefend any reward for nosiness. “Come if you can,” he had written, too, meaning that he planned to stay where he was.
Suddenly Lenox realized that the whole thing — the night, the cigar ends — suggested perhaps not a meeting but a lookout. Weston had been spying on someone. Perhaps the men who had ridden their horses to the edge of town.
He felt he was making progress, now, but Musgrave brought a halt to that. Lenox arrived at the house, a rather grand one, and sent in a card with the butler, who bore it on a salver.
He returned, funereally expressioned and his tails impeccable, with the card untouched. “I’m afraid, sir, that Captain Musgrave is occupied.”
“Tell him it’s about this murder, if you would,” said Lenox.
“If you wish to return in the—”
“Tell him now, please.”
“Sir.”
But Musgrave was unmoved. The butler was gone for some time and when he finally returned, looking deeply sorrowful, said that unless an officer of the law was present, his master had no wish to speak with anyone; it had been a taxing day; he would be very happy to meet Mr. Lenox on some other occasion; and so forth.
Lenox knew when he was defeated. He thanked the butler and left the hall.
Outside it was dark now. He had come out in a light sack coat, more suitable to an autumn’s day than an autumn evening, and he regretted it, wished he had worn his tweed frock coat. It was the whistling country air: One could always find warmth of a sort in London, over a grate, in the motion of other humans, near the horses at the curb. One was more alone here. Poor Weston!
Unusually for a man of his station Lenox never carried a cane, that gentler descendant of the sword, but by the time he reached the gates of Everley he wished he did. His legs and feet were tired, and as he came into the hall he asked for warm water to wash his feet and his hands. He would have given anything for fifteen minutes of quiet repose, but then there was a great deal to do here: There were Jane and Sophia;
there was Frederick; of course there was Dallington; and worse yet, they were meant to sit to supper in something less than twenty minutes.
Freddie, with his usual tact, had foreseen this. Bowing slightly, his butler said to the tired detective, “The master has requested we serve supper in your rooms, sir, unless you wish to dine more formally this evening.”
Lenox did not.
“He would also like to invite you to the small study at your leisure, sir, and adds that he will be up very late — that you cannot come too late for him.”
“Thank you, Nash.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jane’s face, when he entered, was etched with anxiety, but she saw that he was, if worn, nevertheless safe. Slowly, over an excellent supper, they returned to more even tempers. They even got to see Sophie, briefly, before Miss Taylor took her.
At last, lighting a small cigar, Lenox said, “I think perhaps you should return to London, Jane.”
“Nonsense.”
“Until I know that it’s safe to be in Plumbley—”
“I consult my memory and discover that we are in Everley, not Plumbley, Charles, and anyhow we Lenox women are made of sterner stuff than that.” She put a few soft fingertips to his face. “You look very tired.”
He smiled. “It may be that I’m not as young as I once was.”
She smiled, too. “Almost certainly you are not.”
“Are you sure you feel safe? Comfortable?”
“Charles, can you think I would leave? With the speech to come, and now this, not even mentioning poor John?”
He kissed her. In the end perhaps this was love: a balance of strength left over, just when you thought yours had all vanished.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Fortified by their hearty supper, Lenox went downstairs in slightly higher spirits to see Frederick. The older man was standing by his telescope, glass of wine in hand.
“Ah, Charles,” he said when the door opened, not turning. “Put your eye here. Remarkably clear out.”
Lenox looked. “Beautiful,” he said. The stars, isolate and furious in the black of the night, were spread in a pattern unfamiliar to him. “What am I seeing?”
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